1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication system, and more specifically, to a communication apparatus capable of performing a load balancing operation.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Wireless communication technologies are rapidly developing, and several wireless communication specifications such as IEEE802.11a, IEEE802.11b, and IEEE802.11g specifications have been improved accordingly. Hence, wireless network cards produced and promoted by the manufacturers can support several specifications.
For example, two of the five access points (AP) conform to the IEEE802.11a specification, another two access points conform to the IEEE802.11b/g specification, and the remaining access point conforms to the IEEE802.11b specification. When a wireless network card is capable of supporting the three above-mentioned specifications, a user can establish a connection to any one of the above-mentioned five access points according to his/her preference, or use an operating system of the user's terminal to automatically select an access point with a greatest power from the above-mentioned five access points to establish a connection. However, because of various factors, such as the users in a same building are not averagely distributed, or the power of each access point is not the same, the methods of selection of an access point may result in a situation in which all users in the building only utilize a few specific access points, causing the networks of these specific access points to be jammed while the remaining access points are idle.
In a same operation area, it is necessary for different access points to use different medium access control addresses (MAC addresses) and different channels in order to avoid conflicts. Hence, in general, when a station, such as a notebook, is going to establish a connection with a specific access point, the station firstly needs to send a probe request to the specific access point. After the specific access point sends a probe response back to the station, the station then sends an authentication request to the specific access point. Next, the access point sends an authentication response back to the station. If the authentication is successful, the station sends an association request to the specific access point. After the specific access point sends an association response back to the station, the station and the specific access point can officially receive and transmit data. To ensure the safety of the data, there are several kinds of keys generated during the authenticating process. The methods of generating the above-mentioned keys are all related to an identification code (basic service set identification, BSSID) of the access point.
The several above-mentioned access points can also be integrated into a same wireless communication apparatus, such as a hot spot (which is well known to those skilled in the art), which means a built-in bridge is utilized. The built-in bridge is for connecting several wireless communication interfaces using different specifications, allowing the wireless communication apparatus to provide several kinds of wireless communication interfaces in a same area, and enabling a user to choose one of the wireless communication interfaces. Each of the wireless communication interfaces needs to have a unique BSSID to represent the wireless communication interface itself.
When using a related art load balancing method to connect a specific station originally connected to an access point (or a wireless communication apparatus) with a greater load (corresponding to a BSSID) to an access point (or a wireless communication apparatus) with a lesser load (corresponding to another BSSID), it is necessary to repeat the above-mentioned many and complicated steps to complete execution of a procedure of establishing a connection corresponding to another BSSID. Furthermore, if it is necessary to utilize a higher security mechanism, establishing a connection takes much more time and therefore the performance of the wireless communication apparatus will be substantially affected.